Activists slam Dalit lawyer for hounding Dalit woman who accused him of harassment

Condemning the alleged harassment by a Hyderabad-based progressive Dalit lawyer against a Dalit feminist, who had accused him of sexually harassing her, Women and Transgender Organisations Joint Action Committee (WTOJAC) – a gender justice collective – recently issued a statement. “We express our shock and dismay at the sexual harassment of a Dalit feminist activist for over a year by a progressive Dalit lawyer from Hyderabad, often describing himself as a human rights activist,” WTOJAC said. The statement was signed by nearly 100 activists. According to the survivor, the accused has been hounding her since the time she filed a complaint of sexual harassment at workplace in Amnesty International India, Bengaluru. The accused, who was the survivor’s manager, allegedly sent inappropriate emails and WhatsApp messages. Subsequently, she filed a complaint with the Internal Committee at Amnesty. When he allegedly filed false cases against her husband, she lodged a complaint with the Indiranagar police station in Bengaluru. Both the survivor and the accused are no longer a part of Amnesty. While the accused was fired from the organisation, the survivor was laid off, citing a fund crunch. The statement by activists released on Thursday said: “Since the time of the filing of the complaint in the workplace, he has indulged in the following acts in an act of pure vindictiveness against the survivor: a SC/ST Atrocity complaint against her husband, a complaint in Lokayukta against her father for disproportionate assets, legal notices to her friends for their FB posts, legal notice to a newspaper for publishing an account without names, RTIs in banks, MRO offices about the income and property of the woman’s father, husband and in-laws, more than one letter to her husband’s workplace that there is a pending Atrocity case against him, writing to NHRC about the police not pursuing his case against her husband.” It further added, “The survivor has been accused of not having a mind of her own and being used and manipulated by her father, husband, friends, employers and so on. The survivor is also accused of being vindictive for not having accepted his letter of apology and instead pursuing the criminal justice system.”